


Those nights belong to us

by kiwiana



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, F/F, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-09
Updated: 2010-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2129301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwiana/pseuds/kiwiana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title is from a Skillet song. </p><p>The closest I ever came to owning these characters is an iPod named Padackles. No harm, no foul, and no offence is intended by using them for my own ends.</p><p>Originally published on LiveJournal 2010-12-09.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Those nights belong to us

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a Skillet song. 
> 
> The closest I ever came to owning these characters is an iPod named Padackles. No harm, no foul, and no offence is intended by using them for my own ends.
> 
> Originally published on LiveJournal 2010-12-09.

When Genevieve Cortese is fifteen years old, she falls in love with her best friend.  
  
It should be shocking; it should send her whole world off-kilter. But the truth is, Katie has been everything to her since the day they were born, two hours and twenty-four minutes apart, in the same maternity ward. Their moms met each other in ante-natal classes and were instant best friends, but even they couldn’t have imagined going into labour at the same time.  
  
From that moment on, the Cassidys were practically family—Gen’s mom is Katie’s Godmother, and vice versa. They grow up in each other’s pockets, their lives mirroring each other to almost unbelievable extremes. When Gen was eighteen months old, what her parents thought was a cold turned nasty fast, prompting a midnight dash to the emergency doctor. In all the retellings of that night that have taken place over the years, it’s never been decided which family was more taken aback when Mitch Cassidy rushed through the door just twenty minutes after the Corteses arrived, a feverish Katie bundled up in his arms.  
  
By the third time they bumped into each other at medical centres, both families had stopped being surprised.  
  
Still, it’s not like they’re identical or anything. Gen’s not stupid—far from it—but she’s no brainbox; Katie breezes through anything academic without even trying. Katie plays a mean game of tennis, and she’s a kickass left striker in soccer, but ask her to do anything involving the arts and she’s floundering; Gen has two left feet, but she can coax a tune out of pretty much any instrument she picks up, and she’s been told she’s pretty electric on the stage. Somehow, these differences just let them play off each other, rather than pushing them into the separate social circles most people would expect.  
  
When they’re thirteen, puberty sets in, and suddenly all Katie can talk about is boys, boys, and more boys. She steals her mom’s  _Cosmo_  and practices oral sex on a banana; Genevieve discovers that her gag reflex really,  _really_  sucks (no pun intended). Katie starts wearing eyeliner, buys a push-up bra; Gen doesn’t know how to tell her that she looks a million times better without all that extra crap. Katie starts gushing over pretty much everything with a penis, from Aldis who sits in front of her in English class to Johnny Depp, describing in lurid detail just which parts of her anatomy react to their presence, whether real or on her TV screen. And suddenly, Gen realises that she feels the things that Katie describes so vividly for  _women_ —that it’s Winona Ryder that makes her heart race when they watch  _Edward Scissorhands_. And she’s got no fucking idea how to deal with that, or even if she should. After all, her body’s going through all these ‘changes’, as adults keep trying to tell her (and seriously, if her mom uses the word ‘discharge’ one more time, she’s going to hurl). It might mean nothing at all, or it might mean something, but Gen figures she’s got all the time in the world to figure it out. In the meantime, she doesn’t need to tell anyone—she can’t even find the words to tell Katie, and  _that’s_  a first.  
  
And still, it takes her another two years to connect the dots. It takes a party at the end of their freshman year, when they’re sitting in a circle with some of the guys in her art class passing a joint around, and from one minute to the next Katie goes from sitting beside her giggling to flat on her back in the grass with Brock’s hand up her shirt, for the truth to sneak up behind Genevieve and smack her in the head with the force of a runaway freight train.  
  
So, yeah. When Genevieve Cortese is fifteen years old, she falls in love with her best friend. Or maybe she fell in love with her the day she was born—her smart, funny, beautiful, and  _straight_  best friend. And somehow, the world keeps on turning.

* * *

By junior year, Gen’s learned to deal. Mostly. Okay, so maybe her method of dealing consists mostly of a smoking habit that seriously fucks with her singing voice and some major investment in Ben & Jerry’s, but it’s still  _dealing_. And the truth is, it really does help keep everything from getting to her too much. Every time Katie meets a new guy, Gen listens to how special and wonderful and amazing he is. Through the course of each relationship, she’ll listen to Katie wax poetical about how caring and attentive he is, how wonderful the sex is, how magical their future is going to be. And when they invariably crash and burn, Gen is right there to pick up the pieces. She’ll let Katie sob incoherently, listen to her rant and rave about how he was a shitty person and a lousy lay and how he has a tiny fucking dick anyway, until she finally cries herself her sleep. Gen will then tuck her into bed and sneak outside to smoke her way through half a dozen Marlboros as she wills her hands to stop shaking.  
  
When Katie comes back from soccer camp just before senior year bubbling about some guy named Charlie, Genevieve steels herself for the whole cycle to start over. From the way Katie talks about him, Charlie is God’s gift to women everywhere—super-smart and super-gorgeous and super-talented on the soccer pitch and just super-everything. He’s also super-coming down to see Katie in a couple of weeks, and Genevieve super-has to meet him, apparently.  
  
But when Charlie does turn up, Gen’s heart literally stops for a moment. Because yeah, Charlie is seriously fucking attractive. Charlie looks at Katie like the sun rises and sets with her.  
  
Charlie is also absolutely, unequivocally, indisputably  _female_.  
  
And that’s when the bottom falls out of Genevieve’s world—because when it wasn’t girls, it was okay. She could deal with Katie being straight; it sucked, but she could deal. Now, though, she’s being faced with the fact that it’s not that Katie’s not into girls. It’s just that Katie’s not into  _her_.  
  
She does the only thing she can think of over the suffocating fog in her brain. She runs.

* * *

For two weeks, Gen ignores all of Katie’s calls and texts. It’s probably the longest they’ve gone without talking since they could both speak. For the first couple of days, Katie’s messages are confused— _Babe, are you okay? Call me and tell me what the fuck is going on, yeah?_ —then they’re worried— _Gen, seriously, are you fucking dead? Call me back, dammit!_ —then they’re pissed— _You know what, Gen? Fuck you. I never figured you for a homophobe, but if you’ve got a problem, you can go right to hell._ —before they finally dry up altogether.  
  
When she listens to that last one, Genevieve punches a hole in her bedroom wall. She laughs, her voice hysterical even to her own ears, until the laughter turns into wracking sobs. She curls up into a ball on the floor, nursing her hand, and she cries.

* * *

The next thing she’s aware of is blinking awake, all her muscles screaming. She must have fallen asleep like this, hunched over with her back propped up against the wall. Dimly, she registers that the repetitive banging she can hear is not, in fact, in her head, but is actually someone hammering on her door.  
  
She hauls herself up off the ground and yanks open the door, her eyes widening when she sees Katie on the other side looking very much like she’s ready to rip out someone’s jugular.   
  
“You fucking suck,” is how Katie greets her. Gen isn’t sure whether or not she deserves that, so she just steps aside to let Katie into her room.  
  
“I mean, you  _really_  fucking suck, Genevieve,” she spits. Gen flinches at the use of her full name; it sounds almost poisonous rolling off Katie’s tongue. “I mean, Jesus fucking Christ on a cupcake! You’re my best fucking friend, Genevieve. I thought if anyone would be cool, if anyone would love me unconfuckingditionally, it would be you. I never pegged you for a fucking homophobe, you asshole!” Katie rages, the colour high on her cheeks.   
  
And Gen has to laugh, she has to, because Katie is so fucking blind, always has been, and if this is the end of their friendship then dammit, it’s going to go out with a bang.   
  
“You know what, Katie? Even you cannot be that fucking oblivious. I don’t have a problem with you sleeping with a girl, fuck. I have a problem with you sleeping with anyone  _who isn’t me_.”  
  
Gen’s always thought that people’s jaws dropping is something that only happens in cartoons, but damn if that isn’t exactly what Katie does. The air is silent and taut around them as Gen waits for Katie to find her voice.  
  
“How long?” Katie asks finally, her voice hoarse as though she has to force the air past her lips.  
  
“Figured it out when you hooked up with Brock Kelly in our freshman year.”  
  
Katie nods as though she’s processing that information. “Eighth grade,” she says finally.  
  
Gen blinks. “What? No, it was definitely ninth. We were high as fuck, and I definitely didn’t try pot before we got to high school,” she says, confused as to why they’re arguing over semantics.  
  
Katie shakes her head violently. “No, you idiot. In eighth grade, we went swimming one day, right? I mean, we went swimming a lot that year, probably, but—man, I had seen you in your swimsuit a hundred times before—fuck, I’d seen you  _naked_  a hundred times before—but I had never seen you the way I saw you that day. You were so fucking beautiful, Gen, and I  _wanted_  you, so fucking bad. And I realised that no one else was ever going to measure up to you, and I knew I could never have you. So I just—I went the opposite direction, you know? Have you ever noticed how the guys I dated were the complete opposite of you in every way? I mean, even aside from the cock. And then I met Charlie, and she was—she’s great, you know? She reminded me of you. And I thought, maybe, I could have the next best thing, but that’s not fair on anyone, especially her, and it wouldn’t have worked anyway, and Gen, I really need you to say something now because apparently I  _can’t shut up_.”  
  
It’s only then that Gen notices the wetness on her cheeks; she scrubs across her face with the back of her hand. “I’d really like to kiss you now, if that’s okay,” she whispers. The words are barely out of her mouth when she finds herself with an armful of her best friend. Their mouths crash together, hot and messy and so fucking  _perfect_.  
  
They tumble backwards onto the bed, still kissing frantically. Gen’s still half-convinced this is a really vivid dream, but as soon as the thought enters her head, she feels a sharp pinch on her hip.  
  
“Fucking hell!” she hisses, yanking away instinctively. Katie giggles, pulling her closer.  
  
“Just reminding you this is real,” she whispers softly, running her hands through Gen’s hair. “Fuck, I can’t believe we could have been doing this for years already.”  
  
Gen grins, pulling Katie closer until they’re pressed together from collarbone to toe. “It’s okay,” she whispers back. “We’ve got years to catch up.”


End file.
